


Living Arrangements

by omphale23



Category: Twitch City
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-14
Updated: 2010-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 00:05:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphale23/pseuds/omphale23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>With many, many thanks to <a href="http://sageness.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://sageness.livejournal.com/"><b>sageness</b></a> for her fabulous beta notes. Any remaining failings are purely my own. And probably something she mentioned. *g*</p>
    </blockquote>





	Living Arrangements

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slidellra (sli)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sli/gifts).



> With many, many thanks to [](http://sageness.livejournal.com/profile)[**sageness**](http://sageness.livejournal.com/) for her fabulous beta notes. Any remaining failings are purely my own. And probably something she mentioned. *g*

_pemmican_

After he graduated Newbie spent an entire year hitchhiking across the country. Okay, not the entire year. In November he forgot his wallet in a Vancouver bus station and called his mum for money, and she made him come back to Toronto.

But until then, he was completely on his own. A free man, making his own rules, seeing the world. Footloose and fancy free. He asked no permission and made no promises.

That's why he sometimes felt a little bad about the guy in Moose Jaw, the one who reminded Newbie of Curtis. He was so innocent, clean cut and stubborn and sure that nobody in the world was ever really bad. Newbie kinda regretted taking advantage of that, but he told himself it was fine. It didn't mean anything.

Ben was polite, which Curtis wasn't. And he was gorgeous, which...well, Curtis sort of grew on you. Like a fungus, but a nice fungus, the sort of fungus who was great for watching King Kong with or playing Canadian Actor Bingo.

The Mountie in Moose Jaw, because he was a Mountie with the hat and everything, wasn't really like that. But he reminded Newbie of home, of the way Curtis would just say whatever he thought, even if it was completely crazy. An okay guy, and Newbie liked him a lot. But after a month of sleeping on the guy's bed (while Ben slept on the floor, which was not what he had in mind but there wasn't a good way to say that to somebody who blushed when Newbie came out of the bathroom in a towel) he had to move on, see something new. Newbie snuck out on Tuesday, while Ben was at work, ready to move on.

He was sure he was missing something good.

 

_gun_

He hooked up with the singer because he missed Howard.

Howard had been his first roommate, back in the dorm. This geeky kid with a funny way of looking at him sometimes, but Newbie didn't mind. He was neat, and didn't mind covering for Newbie when his parents called to check on him. Everything you could want in a roommate, including cooking his own food and then letting Newbie share in exchange for some cheesy poofs.

He heard a few years later that Howard had gotten into legal trouble but he never knew what happened. When Nathan got arrested, he almost told him to look Howard up, but he wouldn't wish Nathan on an enemy let alone Howard, who had already gotten a bad break.

Still, even though he hadn't seen Howard in years, the singer had a mohawk and looked familiar so Newbie took him home. Gave him the couch, although by the end of the first week they were bunking together in Newbie's bed.

The singer didn't cook. He didn't clean, either, and mostly sat around drinking and getting high and calling Newbie names. He was worse than Curtis about remembering to take a shower. But sometimes, when he was mostly sober, he grabbed Newbie by the neck and kissed him sweetly and like they meant something.

Three weeks later, they broke two mattress slats and Newbie bought a bigger bed. By the time he got it home, the singer (who looked like Howard and said his name was Billy, but when he said it Newbie assumed he lied) had taken off. Newbie thought he should call Ben from Moose Jaw and apologize, because that _hurt_ even though they hadn't promised anything. But when he tried everyone said Ben wasn't available, and to try back in the summer.

 

_body modification_

Nobody's hair was really this color.

Newbie wasn't trying to fool anyone. He knew that orange was a terrible color and no one understood why he picked it.

Sometimes he just needed to be different, to look like someone new, to be something else. It was why he never used his given name. He'd started calling himself Newbie in Calgary, because after Moose Jaw he didn't want anyone to come looking for him. So he ditched Steve, which was what he was going by for the first two months, and picked something that no one would forget. Just in case someone asked.

He didn't think too hard about why he wouldn't tell people who he really was. Newbie thought maybe he didn't know anymore.

Still, that wasn't really enough. So he got some bright clothes, and he changed his hair, and when Alfred came into the shop he flirted a little and did his best goofy dance and stuck his phone number in the bag with the expensive cat food.

Alfred looked a little like Howard, a lot like the singer whose name wasn't Billy, and nothing like Ben at all. Or Curtis.

Still, with the dark hair and the bad social skills, Newbie thought he might possibly have to admit he had a type.

They had fun. Alfred worked nights, so they would sleep in and go wandering in the afternoons, watching the tourists walk around with their maps out. Newbie moved his stuff into Alfred's apartment, because it was bigger. He thought he could get comfortable there.

Then Alfred brought a guy named Billy back from a trip to the States, which was a weird fucking coincidence, and Newbie grabbed his tapes and his clothes and his collection of mint X-Men comics and followed Hope home one day.

 

_relative_

His mother didn't shut up the whole way home. Telling him that he should have known better, that Curtis had always been a bad influence, that Hope must have low self-esteem because honestly, why else would she live there?

Newbie tried really hard to ignore her. Instead he thought about Hope, sitting on the bed and the way she didn't back away when he curled up. She smelled like a girl, and Newbie had never lived with a girl. It sounded nice, even if it meant she was sleeping with Curtis and not really looking at Newbie most of the time.

Newbie had liked it there. He liked walking to work, and he liked sitting on the couch and watching tv. He should have just shut up about the remote, even though Curtis was terrible. He switched channels too fast and he watched the commercials and he never left on Nickelodeon, even when there was a Double Dare marathon.

By the time Newbie gave up, had to say something, he was sure Curtis didn't want him there. He definitely didn't want Newbie around Hope, and that could have been because he knew, somehow, that Newbie _liked_ Hope.

Or it could have been because Curtis thought that Hope would find out how they met, that Newbie would tell her about the two of them watching tv from a pile of blankets on the floor, missing whole episodes because Newbie wondered what Curtis's elbow tasted like, or forgetting to set the alarm because Curtis wanted to stay up and figure out which was hotter, tying Newbie to the bed or blindfolding him.

As they pulled into the driveway, Newbie wasn't sure why he still cared. But it wasn't fair that Curtis couldn't trust him, didn't know that their secrets were their own.

 

_home_

Newbie paid extra for two bedrooms and a view, but he didn't advertise for a roommate right away. It seemed like a good time to try out living on his own, maybe decide what sort of person he wanted.

_Not Crazy_ was at the top of the list, right up there with _Likes Sonic Youth_ and _Has Own Television_. But that didn't seem so important when Geoff showed up, wearing a coat that belonged to someone much bigger and a little twitchy.

Still, there was something in his eyes that looked familiar. Newbie invited him in.

Geoff didn't watch tv, ever, and mostly he sat around reading plays and muttering to himself. When he wasn't home, he was at the ramshackle theater down the street, directing something that Newbie tried to watch but never stayed awake through. Geoff didn't seem to mind.

Newbie didn't say anything about Geoff letting his hair grow out from the buzzcut he'd arrived with to something longer, curly and frazzled and more like Geoff, really. It suited him.

And he didn't say anything when Geoff's share of the rent bounced, just paid it and kept paying, because artists couldn't be expected to remember things like rent and groceries and whether or not they fed the cat, which Geoff didn't.

Newbie thought Geoff might eventually do something great. So he paid the rent. And when Geoff was almost back to normal, only talking to people who were in the room and remembering to eat most days, Newbie called a cousin in Montreal and asked her if they had an opening.

She said yes, and Newbie bought a bus ticket and packed a bag and kissed Geoff on the lips, just once, before he shut the door and sent Geoff off to find his own way home.


End file.
